The Definitive List of the Most Popular Science-Fiction Films on Social Media, Ever

From the 1958 classic The Blob right through to the genre-defining Star Wars trilogies and now to 2013’s special effects extravaganza Pacific Rim, the science-fiction genre is undoubtedly one of the most popular film genres. We’re so excited about Pacific Rim that we got nostalgic and decided to take a look at the most popular science-fiction films in the world!

From the 1958 classic The Blob right through to the genre-defining Star Wars trilogies and now to 2013’s special effects extravaganza Pacific Rim, the science-fiction genre is undoubtedly one of the most popular film genres. We’re so excited about Pacific Rim that we got nostalgic and decided to take a look at the most popular science-fiction films in the world!

The most highly anticipated science-fiction release of the summer, Pacific Rim is already more popular than Tom Cruise’s Spring blockbuster Oblivion and the upcoming epic, Elysium – with over 200,000 more Facebook fans than the other two films.

We took inspiration from the glitziest award shows in the world and sorted the films into categories, then worked out who was top in each – what we found was very interesting.

Best Animation

Monsters vs Aliens is the most popular sci-fi animation ever with nearly 2million Facebook likes – that’s the same number as half of what the film made at the box office during its opening weekend in the UK.

Best TV Show

The most popular science-fiction television show of all-time is Doctor Who, which has over 3 million Facebook likes and 3.5 million YouTube views.

Outstanding Social Performance on an Asian Network

Although shadowed by the overwhelming success of Avatar in 2009, Moon has been a huge hit in China and leads all science-fiction films on Chinese networks with over 600,000 fans on Tencent Weibo.

Best Sequel

Talked about nearly 250,000 times on Facebook and with over 200,000 Twitter followers, Iron Man 3 is the most popular sci-fi sequel ever and the third most popular science-fiction film of all time.

Lifetime Achievement Award

The 1971 classic, A Clockwork Orange, is the 22nd most popular science-fiction film of all time with 2.3 million Facebook likes – astonishing considering that it is at least twenty years older than most of the other films we looked at.

Best Actor

Forty-seven million Facebook likes and 36 million YouTube views, the combined equivalent of The Independence Day budget, make Will Smith the most popular sci-fi actor of all time – it’s hard to imagine The Men in Black trilogy and Independence Day without him.

Best Actress

Known for her starring role in Transformers 1 and 2, Megan Fox is the most popular sci-fi actress ever to be on social media. Fox boasts 42 million Facebook likes and nearly 1 million Twitter followers, despite having only tweeted 29 times – that’s 34,482 followers per tweet.

Best of 2013

Having already made the list once, Iron Man 3 is back again. With 15 million Facebook likes and over 200,000 Twitter followers, the third installment of the Iron Man trilogy is the most popular science fiction film of 2013 so far.

Best Science-Fiction Film of All-Time

Winner of three Academy Awards, two BAFTAs and two Golden Globes – Avatar is the most popular sci-fi film so far this century, as well as all-time, with over 42 million Facebook likes and 14 million YouTube views.

So there we have it, the definitive list of most popular films science-fiction films on social media, ever. It’s no real surprise that Avatar is the most popular science-fiction film in history, but interesting to see Iron Man 3 breaking into the top three science-fiction films of all time after hitting the silver screen less than a year ago.

*All films had to be categorised under “Sci-Fi” on IMDB to qualify for our list.